Day 5, Part 4- Top of the Rock!

Next we headed back to the Rockefeller Center to go to the "Top of the Rock" observatory that is actually higher than the Empire State Building.

 Jump!!

 We saw the huge Swarovski Crystal Chandelier again....

 It's near impossible to photograph, especially on that white background, so you'll have to take my word for it that it is massive & super sparkley!

 Very precise too....

 The red & green is the Empire State Building.  Although I had read and heard otherwise, I actually enjoyed the view from the Empire State Building better.  I felt like you could see more, including the Statue of Liberty and River better, and you could see straight down much better; the retaining wall things here didn't have the holes like they did there.  Both are obviously quite impressive though!

This one's a bit fuzzy, you  never know what you're going to get when you ask a stranger to take your photo, but I think it's cute anyway.

 Impressive antennas on top of the building...

This looks very similiar to the photo on their advertisement :)  I actually like mine a bit better though, ha!!!

 They had this cool light room that was motion activated.  So it pretty much went crazy when Kyla walked/ran/danced in!

It played music and made sounds too, pretty cool.  She loved it!

View from the top....

The elevator had a clear top, so you could see going up!

 One more of the view! 

We'd eaten a big, late, lunch at the Greek Restaurant, so we got Jamba Juice and I let Kyla get a donut for dinner, ha!  She'd asked a couple of times & I hadn't let her, so now was the time.  She chose chocolate with sprinkles, of course.

 Sweet girl!

Back at the apartment!  Thanks again to Jamie & Rachel for letting us stay with them!

This was actually a mess-up, but I thought it was kind of neat of the George Washington Bridge in the background and Annie's profile shadow, see it??

The girls played & played some more, and then Kyla crashed.  She actually had NO trouble falling asleep, which is really unusual for her, she didn't even read or anything, and told me that she wished she could be THIS tired every night so she would just fall to sleep immediately, ha!

Day 5, Part 3 - Museum of Modern Art!

 Our next stop was the Museum of Modern Art.  Literally everyone I mentioned it to said "it's weird" when it was mentioned, and after the Met was soooo huge and overwhelming, although good, I wasn't quite sure what to expect.  However, it was great!  I would even say that our experience here was better than at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I had bought a "Citypass" for each of us before we left, so all of these big museums, Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Top of the Rock, etc. was "free".  It did save us a couple of hundred dollars though, it was more than half price, definitely worth it.

They offered a free children's audio tour that was really great.  I actually wish I had gotten a headset also so I could have listened too, I didn't realize it would be so good.  It really 'made' the experience for Kyla.  It featured about 25 of the most famous works of art/artists on the 4th & 5th floors, the more traditional "art" (aka non-weird stuff, ha!) and the oldest of the 'modern' stuff before people started painting canvases solid white and calling it "art".  So, we decided to follow their guide, and off we went, up to the 5th floor to start & work our way down.

One of Kyla's favorites, Seurat.  I have no idea why it was in this crazy frame, I can't imagine that was an original, I need to google it....I'm thinking the museum did it, but I thought it really took away from the painting....strange.

This was the view of Kyla the whole time pretty much, ha!  I actually had a (very) well-to-do looking older lady that had been following the sale path we were, after we had come across her several times, approach me and talk to me about Kyla and what an amazing child she was, she couldn't believe what she knew about the art already, how interested in the art she was, how closely she studied it, etc. and was asking about her, just chatting with me. It's always nice when you receive a compliment, especially as a homeschooling Mom I think when there's pretty much zero feedback.

The big one, the real Starry Night!

 Van Gogh...

okay, this is reeeeally going to test my Art History knowledge, but I don't have the time to google them all and check, so I'm going to take my best guess, you can email me if I'm wrong or comment & I'll fix it, ha!  I *think* this is Redon.....anyway, I really like it :)

 The audio on the headset was several minutes long for each one; she sat down several times and would keep her eyes glued on the painting, occasionally getting up to look at something closer (or farther away) as the headset instructed her to.

 Matisse.....

 Another Matisse I believe....

 Picasso....

They had 2 huuuge Monet Water Lilies panels.  It seems like those are everywhere, I'm not sure how many he did of them, but a lot, but I think they never get old!

 More Monet...

 Love this one!

 My sweet girl!!

In the bathroom Kyla wanted to re-listen to a couple of the audio tracks, ha!  They told me that the audio is available online, I need to look.

 Pollock, I am 100% sure on this one, ha!

 Walking from side to side listening to the audio.

 Studying....

What a great experience!  The length and stuff was perfect; plus, as she sat listening to the audio and studying the main piece in the room, I quickly scanned the rest of the room, it was really perfect, quite relaxing, and worked out great!